What Is It?

A Community Tool

We created Life as We Know It because Stories are powerful. Our stories can be just as incredible, beautiful, heartbreaking, and breathtaking as the fictional stories we watch on television and read in books.

Life as We Know It is a guided journey through your stories and the stories of others. It‘s a resource that will take you deeper into the lives of your friends, family, neighbors, and beyond.

How It Works

Crafting your story

Life as We Know It facilitates a place where you can reflect on, document, and share your own life stories following four, simple chapters: Beginnings, Obstacles, Hope, & Future. Each person writes out and then shares their stories from each chapter over a few gatherings.

Every story has a beginning

What do your opening pages hold? Where did it start? What characters played a part in setting the stage for your life?

Every story has obstacles

What difficulties have you faced? Were there dark twists and turns in your story?

Every story has hope

Who or what gives you hope? Where did you story take a turn for the better?

Every story has a future

Where will your story take you in the days to come? What would you like to see in your concluding chapter?

Use For

Family

Friends

Neighbors

Leadership Team

Business

Small Group

Mission Team

Campus Group

Dorm Floor

Youth Group

1. Host A Gathering

Purchase Life As We Know It Materials

2. Invite Friends

Invite your neighbors, friends, or family

3. Gather Together

Get together for coffee or dinner to begin and explain

4. Write and Share

Meet Four or more times to write and share your stories

5. Continue Building

Continue to engage with those you have shared life with

Create a gathering where each participant shares stories from their lives, the art of storytelling is practiced and deeper relationships are forged.

Why We Made It

Renewing the art of storytelling

There was a time when people gathered on front porches, by the hearth, around kitchen tables. Stories would be told, time and again, renewed with each telling. Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost that and with it the art of storytelling. Sharing stories is foundational to community and the meaningful relationships we all long for.

Sharing our lives—our stories—is how we grow and build community. Life as We Know It is meant to facilitate meaningful sharing that is the foundation for the caring relationships we long for in this life.

Our hope is that this experience will open your heart as your walls go down, helping you to see others—and yourself—in light of the stories that define us. Some stories might surprise you, some might move you, and some might even confront you. Through it all, Life as We Know It will challenge you to listen to and to share in the grand narrative of life, as we know it.